“[R]ailhead may actually degrade the ability to provide intelligence data for use in the consolidated terrorist watch list,” according to the U.S. House subcommittee report. This massive government IT project is failing — and it’s not an isolated case. Large IT projects in agencies from the FBI to the Census Bureau spectacularly — and, it seems, regularly — crash and burn, much to taxpayers’ disgust. It seems there are certain aspects of government culture that make IT failure more likely. It just may be that it’s built into the system.
